Early Birds, Night Owls & Little Ladybirds Pre-School

Storybook bear hunts and cars assembled from tyres and crates give this Bishop's Stortford setting a recognisable character: children have room to develop their own ideas, with adults extending the learning through conversation. At its 23 May 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated Early Birds, Night Owls & Little Ladybirds Pre-School Outstanding and found teaching that skilfully developed children's interests.

Based at St. Josephs Catholic Primary School on Great Hadham Road, the preschool welcomes children from two to rising five; the setting has 80 places in total. Preschool attendance is term-time, with morning, afternoon and full-day patterns, while Holiday Hedgehogs provides a separate school-holiday option. Those are different arrangements, with different practical demands for families.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the educational framework: children learn through play, movement, exploration and creative thinking, indoors and outside. Here, the May 2025 examples show how that becomes something concrete. Filling containers with water and sand introduced volume, while play also gave children opportunities to use words describing order and position. Learning was woven into what children were doing.

In May 2025, children collaborated on Going on a Bear Hunt, taking the story into the garden and searching for bears. Tyres and crates became cars that they built together. These activities combined imaginative play with physical effort and cooperation, rather than treating storytelling and movement as separate parts of the day.

Real objects gave role play substance. In May 2025, children used hairdryers while pretending to work as hair stylists and wrapped dolls before settling them to sleep. Adults watched for opportunities to join play and extend it, allowing children to invite their involvement. Torches in a cosy corner prompted discussion about darkness and electricity. The useful thread is children's ideas becoming starting points for language and investigation.

Outdoor and Community Life

Holiday Hedgehogs, the seasonal club based at St Joseph’s School, adds a separate programme of holiday activities. Its weekly planning includes cooking, sensory exploration, creative workshops and active outdoor play, alongside outings such as swimming and cinema visits. Mad Science workshops and Circus Skills are among its named guest activities; these sit within the holiday programme, rather than being presented as regular preschool sessions.

The holiday club uses the group-wide Curiosity Approach, with open-ended play and children choosing how to explore. Messy play in water troughs is one physical example. That combination gives families a holiday option built around participation and choice, with a broader activity programme than the preschool-day examples alone describe.

In May 2025, children had met staff through home visits and settled quickly. Getting to know an adult before starting helped make the move into preschool easier.

At the May 2025 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and identified effective support plans, cooperation with parents and professionals, and significant progress for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. These findings matter more than a broad promise of inclusion: they describe how support was organised and its effect at that visit.

In May 2025, staff used Makaton to support communication, including for children learning English as an additional language. Children also had places to seek comfort, and adults helped them put feelings into words. Emotional support was part of everyday interaction, alongside learning to share and help friends.

Independence had practical expression too. In May 2025, children served their own food, used cutlery and talked with adults about food choices. Parents received updates about development that helped them continue learning at home. Preparation for school therefore included manageable daily skills and communication, rather than concentrating solely on formal tasks.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is St. Josephs Catholic Primary School, Great Hadham Road, Bishop's Stortford, CM23 2NL. Preschool runs Monday to Friday during term time, offering a morning session from 9am to noon, an afternoon session from noon to 3pm and a full day. The full-day finishing time needs clarification before booking, as detailed below.

Holiday Hedgehogs operates from 8am to 6.30pm during the February, May and October half terms, Easter and four weeks of the summer holidays. This is a separate holiday-club pattern, rather than an extension of the term-time preschool timetable. Enquiries can be made through the contact form, by email to info@earlybirdsandnightowlsclubs.co.uk or by calling 01279 771367.

Funding and Paid Extras

In May 2025, the setting provided government-funded early years education for eligible children. Private preschool sessions are also offered. The funding question for a family is how its entitlement fits the intended attendance pattern and which additional items enter the bill.

For Holiday Hedgehogs, breakfast, snacks and a light cooked lunch are included, while families provide a packed tea. Families also supply sun cream, a sun hat, suitable wet-weather clothing and spare clothes for that club.

The preschool shares a school site. Attending it does not guarantee a Reception place at St. Josephs Catholic Primary School; families still use the local authority admissions process.

• Full-day finishing time. The preschool timetable gives 3.10pm, while the St Joseph's fee timetable gives 3pm. Confirm the booked collection time, especially if another child's school collection determines the afternoon routine.
• Funded-place costs. Funded provision was operating in May 2025. Which entitlements and delivery patterns apply to your child, and how are preschool meals, consumables and additional hours treated in a current written quotation?
• Holiday-club preparation. Holiday Hedgehogs includes breakfast, snacks and cooked lunch, but families send packed tea and sun cream. Its outdoor activities also call for clothing suited to wet weather, so the holiday bag needs planning separately from the preschool routine.
• The school-site connection. The preschool's address is within St. Josephs Catholic Primary School. Treat childcare selection and the Reception application as separate decisions, because preschool attendance does not secure the school place.

This setting suits families seeking morning or afternoon preschool sessions as well as a full-day preschool pattern, with a separate holiday-club option. Its strongest educational evidence is the May 2025 account of purposeful play: children built, investigated, acted out stories and practised independence with adult guidance. The May 2025 account also describes children settling quickly after meeting staff through home visits. Resolve the full-day collection time and funded-session terms before choosing the attendance pattern.